So, as the 2013 Apple rumor mill ramps up, and the prognosticators wonder whether the company’s product pipeline includes a television, a watch, or both, consider this: While Apple could likely use another disruptive innovation on which to build its continued success, what it really needs — crucially — is to do Web services well.

You know how mobile developers rave about how on iOS it’s easier to create great apps — better looking graphics, better performance, smoother animation? You hear the opposite when it comes to things like iCloud Core Data syncing.

Well said by both. I trust Apple to sync my bookmarks, calendars, and contacts, and it hasn’t failed me yet. But I’ve experienced so many problems with third-party data syncing via iCloud that I wouldn’t trust it to back up either of my iOS devices. It’s perplexing how Apple can smoothly stream trailers and full-length HD videos from their data centres, and engineer incredible desktop software, but they can’t seem to combine the two traits to build a great web services experience.